A storage area network (SAN) may be implemented as a high-speed, special purpose network that interconnects different kinds of data storage devices with associated data servers on behalf of a large network of users. Typically, a storage area network includes high performance switches as part of the overall network of computing resources for an enterprise. The storage area network is usually clustered in close geographical proximity to other computing resources, such as mainframe computers, but may also extend to remote locations for backup and archival storage using wide area network carrier technologies. Fibre Channel networking is typically used in SANs although other communications technologies may also be employed, including Ethernet and IP-based storage networking standards (e.g., iSCSI, FOP (Fibre Channel over IP), etc.).
As used herein, the term “Fibre Channel” refers to the Fibre Channel family of standards (developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)) and other related and draft standards. In general, Fibre Channel defines a transmission medium based on a high speed communications interface for the transfer of large amounts of data via connections between varieties of hardware devices.
In a typical SAN, one or more Fibre Channel switches are used to communicatively connect one or more server devices with one or more data storage devices. Such switches generally support a high performance switching fabric and provide a number of communication ports for connecting to other switches, servers, storage devices, or other SAN devices. Other high performance fabrics may employ different fabric technologies, such as Infiniband.
Other networking technologies, such as Ethernet, may also be employed in communicating between computing and networking devices. However, these networking technologies do not work seamlessly with high performance networks, such as a Fibre Channel network. For example, duplicate media access controller (MAC) addresses within an Ethernet network can cause looping and misdirection of frames within the network, which can lead to data corruption in devices coupled to the high performance network.